Dispositions and Causes

by Toby Handfield

Overview

In recent decades, the analysis of causal relations has become a topic of central importance in analytic philosophy. More recently, dispositional properties have also become objects of intense study. Both of these phenomena appear to be intimately related to counterfactual conditionals and other modal phenomena such as objective chance, but little work has been done to directly relate them. Dispositions and Causes contains ten essays by scholars working in both metaphysics and in philosophy of science, examining the relation between dispositional and causal concepts.

Particular issues discussed include the possibility of reducing dispositions to causes, and vice versa; the possibility of a nominalist theory of causal powers; the attempt to reduce all metaphysical necessity to dispositional properties; the relationship between dispositions, causes, and laws of nature; the role of causal capacities in explaining the success of scientific inquiry; the grounding of dispositions and causes in objective chances; and the type of causal power required for free agency.

The introductory chapter contains a detailed overview of recent work in the area, providing a helpful entry to the literature for non-specialists.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780199558933
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	04/15/2009
Series:	Mind Association Occasional Series
Pages:	368
Product dimensions:	5.70(w) x 8.60(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

Toby Handfield is Lecturer in Philosophy and an Australian Research Council Postdoctoral Fellow at Monash University. He works both in metaphysics and in moral theory.

Table of Contents

1. The metaphysics of dispositions and causes, Toby Handfield, (Monash University)2. Dispositions, causes, and reduction, Jennifer McKitrick, (University of Birmingham at Alabama)3. Causal structuralism, dispositional actualism, and counterfactual conditionals, Antony Eagle, (Exeter College, Oxford University)4. Leaving things to take their chances: Cause and disposition grounded in chance, Stephen Barker, Nottingham University)5. Causal laws, policy predictions, and the need for genuine powers, Nancy Cartwright, (London School of Economics)6. How is scientific analysis possible?, Richard Corry, (University of Tasmania)7. Agent-causal power, Timothy O'Connor, (Indiana University)8. Structural properties revisited, Alexander Bird, (Bristol University)9. Causal nominalism, Ann Whittle, (Manchester University)10. Why do the laws explain why?, Marc Lange, (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill)References

Editorial Reviews

"Dispositions and Causes offers stimulating reading in the intersection of metaphysics and the philosophy of science. The papers advance discussion on the metaphysics of dispositions and provide challenges for the dispositionalist to consider. It will be exciting to see how those challenges will be addressed in response." —Philosophy in Review

From the Publisher